


Was it worth it?

by mewmonkey



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Langst, Please Don't Kill Me, Suicide, everyone is kind of a dick, extreme langst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 10:53:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18364562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mewmonkey/pseuds/mewmonkey
Summary: For all they've been through, for all the hurt and pain and suffering they've gone through, Lance only has one question on his mind: is it worth it?





	Was it worth it?

Lance was tired. Oh so tired of all of this, of everything. He didn’t want to fight anymore. The idea of losing to the Galra didn’t even make him flinch. If anything, it would be a welcome respite from all the effort he had to put in.

No one could know. Lance snorted at the thought of anyone finding out as he sat in the kitchen at an unholy hour. Would it even make a difference if they did find out? It wasn’t like they would do anything.

 _“_ _Yeah, Lance, we’re all tired,”_ he could imagine Pidge’s voice dismissing him completely. Or Shiro. Even Keith if the red paladin decided that was something worth replying to.

Lance flashed back to the gameshow, remembering Keith’s caustic tone as he’d said ‘I just don’t want to be stuck here for eternity with Lance.’ Thanks Keith.

“Is that you, Lance?” Hunk’s voice was laden with sleep. “What’re you doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Lance offered with a wan smile, even as he crossed his arms. In the harsh light of the kitchen, the scars there were garishly bright. “You?”

Hunk nodded. He knew about the old scars, and thoroughly ignored them for Lance’s sake. “’Bout same. Woke up from a nightmare about our last mission.”

It’d been a close call. Lance couldn’t blame him, but Lance also hated that mission for completely different reasons. They’d all struggled last week. It was supposed to just be a recon mission, but Galra forces had cornered them, pinned them down and made it impossible for Voltron to be formed.

_“Come on, Lance, pay attention!”_

_“Lance, can’t you see that I need backup?”_

_“For God’s sake, Lance, watch your aim! You’re gonna hit me!”_

They never called him an idiot, but he could hear it in how they spoke to him. And they were right. Lance was stupid. He wasn’t supposed to be piloting, anymore. Allura was the one who should’ve been at the wheel. Piloting the lion wasn’t something Lance was good at and it showed every time they went into battle. All Lance was good for was point a gun.

When they’d finally returned to the castle, everyone was bruised and bleeding. Pidge had needed to be put in the pod for a few hours. Lance’d had a deep cut in his thigh, but… it was fine. He sewed it up himself, and that was a week ago. If he removed the stitches now, his leg would be right a rain in the next few days.

“Lance?” Hunk brought him out of the memory.

“Hmm? Oh,” Lance gave another weak smile. “I’m just tired. I’m gonna take a warm shower and go to bed.”

He gave Hunk a pat on the back, said goodnight, and strolled back to his room. His feet padded quietly though the corridor, and he was glad he’d chosen not to wear shoes. Any louder and they’d echo throughout the castle in the silence of their sleeping hours. He’d wake everyone up and they’d like him even less than they already did.

It was just as he was removing his shirt that someone knocked on his door. Assuming it was Hunk, Lance didn’t bother putting his shirt back on. Hunk’d seen all of his scars and blemishes back at the garrison. He knew the stories behind most of them, so it didn’t matter.

Hunk was not waiting at the door. Rather, it was Keith, with a sour expression marring his handsome features. Lance could admit that he had a little bit of a crush on Keith, if only because the man was beautiful, but right now, Keith was not the person he wanted to see.

“Oh,” Lance breathed, and then swallowed with a little bit of difficulty. He grabbed the first shirt within arm’s reach and shoved it over his head. It messed up his hair in the process, but he would rather his hair was messy than his scars were on show.

Had Keith seen? If he had, he wasn’t showing it. “What do you mean, ‘oh’?”

“Nothing, I just – just didn’t know you were still up.” Lance moved back from the door in a silent invitation to enter, and then, on realising his forearms weren’t covered, hid them behind his back.

“Of course I’m still up,” Keith said, punctuating the caustic tone with an eye roll. “I’m only here now because I saw you walking around. Have you seen my knife?”

Lance frowned. “Which one?” He knew which one. Exactly which one. It was hiding in his bathroom drawer right now.

“The one I picked up from that desert planet.” Keith’s face was slowly losing interest, and something about that sat heavy on Lance’s chest.

Keith didn’t interrogate Lance too hard. It was as if the moment that Keith realised that Lance didn’t have his knife – and why would he? It wasn’t as if he’d put any practice into using it anyway – Lance’d had become unimportant.

He sunk further.

In the shower, he didn’t cry, even as he watched blood flow down the drain. All the scars on Lance’s wrists were old, yes, but there was a reason he had Keith’s knife. It was a pretty piece, all sleek and shiny. Sharpened to perfection, with a slim handle. Tonight, Lance used it to cut the stitches out of his thigh, but before that, he’d used the knife to make even little slices down the inside of his thigh.

In the morning, Lance went to breakfast like usual and pretended his leg wasn’t aching.

“Gooood morning, Princess,” he grinned on seeing Allura.

She rolled her eyes and sat down, not even acknowledging him as an individual. “Good morning, Paladins of Voltrons,” she said instead.

“I don’t know why you keep trying,” Pidge said, a little harsh. “She doesn’t appreciate being flirted with first thing in the morning.”

“On the off chance,” Lance flounced back with a wave of his hand, and pretended like their responses didn’t bother him. As if he’d something worse than ‘hello’.

“Lance,” Shiro’s tone was already disapproving. “Just for once, can you stop trying to annoy everyone.”

That one hurt.

“It’s not as if he knows how to do anything else,” Keith muttered.

Keith’s words could be as sharp as his knives and _Lance_ did not appreciate being spoken to that way. That was an understatement.

“Keith.” Shiro ran a hand over his face, but he wasn’t nearly as strict in his chastising.

Lance kept quiet for the rest of his meal. He wasn’t trying to sulk – in fact he was all smiles – but it was obvious that wasn’t talkative as usual.

Once breakfast was over, Allura announced that they were doing the mind meld exercise once again. And Lance balked.

That was not good. Not in the slightest.

“Just let your thoughts flow,” Allura instructed. “Don’t hold onto them; let them appear as they choose.”

Pidge thought of her brother. Shiro of Kevin. Hunk remembered his nightmare. Keith went back to the BOM.

Lance… Lance couldn’t.

“Lance, are you OK?” Hunk asked, sounding concerned.

Lance nodded, but it was too hard to find a verbal response and keep his horrible thoughts contained at the same time.

“Of course,” Keith griped.

“Keith,” Shiro admonished.

“What? It’s always Lance!”

Pidge hummed. “Didn’t he have trouble connecting last time we tried this?”

Allura leant over the panel. “No, Lance is connected he’s just… oh come on, Lance! This was just supposed to be a quick exercise. Let your thoughts go!”

“ _No!”_ Lance hissed, but it was too late.

Every instance of the paladins of Voltron not being nice… they were going to think he hated them. They’d think he was being silly. Keith’s snide comments. Allura’s disrespectful ignorance of him. Shiro’s thin tolerance. Pidge’s sneer’s. Hunk’s silence. Blood.

Lance ripped the mind meld from his head. He ran.

In his chest, his heart was beating so hard, he was afraid it would hammer its way out. God, he wished it would.

In his room, he sat poured his pain out in tears. He wished he wasn’t so fucking annoying. That’s why they didn’t like him. All he ever did was run his mouth and not pay attention, and _fail_ at things they’d practised a million times over. They didn’t need him! He wasn’t supposed to be a part of Voltron.

Not when he was constantly questioning it. Lance didn’t deserve to be a paladin. If he did, he wouldn’t be wondering whether all this was worth it; he wouldn’t even consider pretending to be ill to get out of training when there were lives that depended on his ability. He was a bad person.

His thigh had ripped open during the run. The blood was seeping through his jeans and… that gave him an idea. All of this could just be over. It could be finished. Lance could give everyone else what they wanted and just… disappear.

After writing a note, and leaving it in his room, Lance grabbed the knife and fled to another level of the castle, somewhere he was sure that none of the other paladins knew about.

It was just another level of rooms, but Lance had picked one – it was _his_ room. Had been for months now. It had things in there that the other paladins wouldn’t approve of. Skirts, makeup, teddy bears. Targets that he used instead of the training room. There were even extra sets of his normal clothes in here, for when he wanted to hide away and not be found until the next day.

The bath had stains, admittedly, but Lance felt comfortable in here. More so than he did in his own room that was just metres away from everyone else’s.

He ran the bath to be too hot. Stripped down to his boxers.

“Bye guys,” he murmured.

And then.

Lance bled.

He forgot one thing, though. Coran knew about his room. And it was Coran who found him half an hour later.

 

 

Hunk was distraught. How could he have been so blind? After that scene in the training room, he’d given Lance ten minutes to calm down before he went looking. Rather than finding Lance, however, Hunk had found a note.

 _It wasn’t your blood. You’re better off without me dragging you all down. I’m_ _not worth crying over. I’m sorry._

Keith had chosen that moment to burst through the door, and, on reading Lance’s note, snorted derisively. “He ran away?”

Hunk hit Keith. He hadn’t meant to, but now was not the time for Keith to disrespect Hunk’s friend. Hunk’s best friend. Lance was Hunk’s best friend and he’d done nothing! So he was doing it now.

“Shut up, Keith.” Hunk stared down at Keith, who was holding his face. “I know I’m meant to be a nice guy, but I need you to shut up! You think you’re so much cooler than Lance, but Lance has been through so much more than you-” he snapped his mouth shut. Now wasn’t the time and they weren’t Hunk’s secrets.

When Shiro arrived, a search was organised, but it was Coran who found him on the cameras, and then let everyone else know where their blue paladin was.

 

 

“We did this?” Allura voice was faint behind her hand as she stared at the boy in the pod. He wasn’t supposed to be that pale.

There was so much blood. Too much. Whether Lance would actually survive was anyone’s guess.

“I should’ve known,” Hunk gasped through a sob. “I should’ve known.”

“How could you have known?” Pidge hiccuped. “You’re not psychic.”

Hunk glared at her. “No, but I am his best friend. And… and I know what he’s like. I should’ve known he’d do this.”

“What he’s like?” Shiro asked. He was a lot more put together than most of the others right now, but he’d break down the second he was alone. “Lance is happy… all the time. Nothing gets to him.”

Coran laughed at the absurdity of that statement. _Nobody_ was always happy.

Hunk’s glare was turned to Shiro. “No, he’s not.” He growled. “He reads too much into what people say, or how they react, and he puts all the blame on himself. He’s an idiot for doing that, but he’s also stupidly perceptive and that makes it so hard for him not to notice when someone isn’t happy with him.”

“ _Well then, why didn’t he come to us?”_ Keith burst.

 _“_ _Why would he?”_ Hunk shouted back. “All you do is insult him, whether he can hear you or not!” He deflated once more. “I should’ve seen it.”

Shiro sat with his face in his palms. _He_ should’ve been the one to see it, to see past the facade that Lance seemed to be an expert at hiding behind. It was his job as the leader to know these kinds of things. And Lance hadn’t felt comfortable enough to tell him. Shiro remembered how Lance saw him. There were no feelings of malice in the mind meld… just sadness. Lance had looked up to Shiro and all Shiro had done was put him down. When was the last time he’d said something nice to Lance?

And underneath the issue of trying to kill himself? Lance had been patching up his own wounds. There were plenty of scars that weren’t old, but also weren’t in danger of opening, stitched up to a professional degree and left to heal by themselves. What had possessed him to do that? All this time, Shiro hadn’t even realised that he’d noticed Lance’s tendency to sit down gently, or to sometimes wince for no reason. He’d ignored it. Shiro’d ignored Lance.

They all had.

Was it worth it?

 

**Author's Note:**

> So... this is a mess of a vent fic  
> Bare with me  
> I'm tired and ill and I just wanted to hurt everyone bc I hate how Lance is treated


End file.
